Leon cared and Jill understood
by Atenea-C
Summary: Leon and Jill and musings about friendship and the weird things they do because friends do weird things, like talking in gibberish, giving you hell and letting you go on a wild-goose chase all over the world if it's what needs to be done. Or, in which Jill drives Leon to the airport and the one time Leon understood.


Disclaimer: If I owned PSoH, it would contain a lot less men-eating rabbits and a lot more kissing between a certain police officer and a half-plant-slash-god we all know very well.

I find very sad there isn't more fics from Jill's point of view. She's pretty much the closest thing to a friend Leon has (besides D) and I have to say that's impressive. D puts up with Leon for a few hours every few day and sometimes that's enough to throw his teacups at him. Jill actually puts up with it for twelve hours shifts. Every day. Sometimes more than five days a week. And she still doesn't hate him somehow.

This girl deserves a prize.

**Leon cared and Jill understood.**

The guys at the precinct had assumed Jill and Leon were kind of an item a long while ago. As in, together, but not quite _together_ (not yet anyway). They honestly thought it was just a matter of time till Leon got her a ring, but they knew better than bringing it up in front of them so they just left them alone.

They didn't really like each other when they met. Jill is methodical while Leon is instinctive. Their first case was a mess and it's a miracle they didn't kill each other, but they eventually learnt that the best way to work together was to humor each other, they eventually become so good at it they help each other out even when working in different cases. They don't really call each other friends but they know they are. Leon has spent enough drunk nights in Jill's couch to prove it.

Guys at work have different traditions. Wednesday is pizza day. On Tuesdays they take turn for coffee. Some of the senior officers go bowling on Sundays and there's also Poker Night with the guys at Garcia's (which doesn't hold any particular date). There were a few other too, but Leon and Jill's tradition is drinking on Thursdays. Sometimes to the usual bar, the one around the corner of the precinct that all the other officers frequent too, sometimes to that rock bar Leon discovered once when he was still in uniform.

They both like rock music, even if Jill has a taste for that _New Wave bull_ Leon never liked. They both have troubles warming up to new bands, they both agree Nirvana was pretty good while it lasted and the Oasis kids aren't half bad, but nothing beats the classics. Jill's the Smith tape is permanently in Leon's car. Leon's Queen tape is always at her car. Leon isn't very good at talking, but somehow he doesn't need to when he's around Jill because she always knows and she always listens and lights the mood when it's getting too gloomy and let him be when he's not ready to talk yet. Leon's so used to Jill he doesn't even need to ask sometimes, he just knows and sometimes Jill'd like it better if he didn't assume so much but the thing is he's right most of the time and she does appreciate it even if she'd never admit it out loud.

People at the precinct say they bicker like an old married couple but they don't. **Leon and D** bicker like an old married couple; they fight and they fight _good_ and _big_ and they always apologize afterwards with cake and riddles and things Jill doesn't understand much about them. Leon and Jill bicker for petty things they both know don't mean a thing, just how you bicker with your siblings, they'll forget they'd been bickering just ten minutes later because that's how it works between them.

Leon's covered for Jill when she was too hungover to go to work after a nasty fight with her parents. Jill became Leon's emergency contact after Leon ended up in the hospital one time too many. Leon gets her a cupcake and they drink a couple of beers when they're both stuck in the graveyard shift on her birthday and Jill takes Leon to S.F. to visit his mother's tombstone when his ancient car finally breaks down. Leon fights with the Count and Jill gives Leon a list of all the fancy bakeries in downtown so he knows where to shop when he wants to bribe his way back to the Count's favour. Jill doesn't want to talk about her break up and Leon beats her sorry excuse of an ex-boyfriend. Leon's the reason guys at the precinct don't flirt with Jill. Jill is (part of) the reason Leon's girlfriends don't last longer than a couple of months and honestly, Jill doesn't blame them. Between spending most of his free time wandering Chinatown or going to her apartment to help her fix stuff, Jill's pretty sure all of the girls who have dated Leon since they've met hate her to some degree but it's not like Jill cares, Leon certainly doesn't think much of them anyway, she would have known by now if it was otherwise because-

They aren't above blackmailing each other for information or getting each other drunk when they feel there is important stuff that needs to be said and the other one is hiding. Jill promised not to psychoanalyze Leon. Leon promised not to punch the living daylights out of her ex boyfriend (again). They both compromise that whatever is said when the other one is too drunk to care, stays between them to the grave, so does one particularly weird and embarassing incident in Venice Beach none of them wants to speak of ever.

There's this time Jill called Leon in the middle of the night to pick her up at the other side of town after a date with a guy went wrong. Leon smells like incense and curiosity but she doesn't feel like talking or even cracking a joke about the incense so he lets her be. That nigh he sleeps in her couch like a guard dog and she makes him breakfast the next morning. He is worried enough to ask her if she wants to tag along with him to various places, like the mexican restaurant near his apartment complex for lunch or the pet-shop to see Chris after their shift and they go on like that for three day till she snaps and yells at him and tells him to leave her alone. The next day they're back to normal and she can see the relief in Leon's eyes.

They do this thing in which they don't talk but still talk somehow. As in, they talk about ice creams, but they end up buying pizza, because it's wednesday and wednesday is pizza day and nobody questions it and everyone else is puzzled. Then there's the times they just talk between each other and only each other and nobody knows what they're talking about, like the time Jill blackmails Leon into dancing with her at the Chief's party. They're talking about Santa Monica and a girl, something-something wich doctor and Casablanca. Nobody has the slightest idea of what is going on but it seems to make enough sense to each other and Leon ends up dancing with Jill anyway and again and again just because they're having fun and maybe it's just that.

They're having fun.

Even when they argue and just talk nonsense, you can tell they have fun. They do those things people mistake for romantic stuff but there is nothing romantic in it at all, because they like each other, a lot, but not in that way. Because they know they can both be themselves around each other. Because Leon knows Jill can do a hell of alot better than him and she knows she's not Leon's type (even if she knows Leon's type isn't even Leon's type either) and that's perfectly OK. They can count on each other. Jill knows that if she were to drop from the face of earth, Leon will know exactly where to find her and if Leon were to ever trust anyone with his life, that'd be Jill.

But they know their limitations.

Jill knows that if she were to marry a douchebag, a complete douchebag Leon knew that was going to make her miserable, Leon wouldn't let her alone till he was proven right because he cares, but if said douchebag could make her happy, utterly ridiculously maddeningly happy, Leon would be all for it whether he liked the douchebag or not, because that's what Leon does, he cares for people and Jill knows that, but Jill also knows that if she were to disappear from the face of earth, Leon would not chase for her all over the world even if he knew where to find her and not only because Leon knew better than bothering her when she wanted to be alone (which he did), but because Leon wouldn't do that for anyone, simple as that. She also knows that if Leon did ever decide to go postal and chase the ghost of certain Chinatown pet-shop owner all over the world, she wouldn't stop him.

Jill knows she could and if it were anyone else, she most decidedly would, but she won't stop Leon because she actually trust Leon, at least for the important stuff. Leon wouldn't chase after any of the other girls he used to date, no matter how heartbroken he was, but there was something different about D. She doesn't really understand them, Leon and the Count, it's part of the cakes and riddles and the earth-shaking fights and she can't put her fingers on it, but it made Leon happy and she knows better than standing in his way because Jill has a way of always understands Leon somehow (even if not much) and whatever Leon was missing with any of his girlfriends he found it with D and Jill knows this chase all over the world isn't as much about finding D as it is about Leon finding himself because that's what she does, she understands, and that's why she is not about to stop him from doing the only thing that could bring her best friend back to life.

When Leon presents his resignation to the chief, the man looks at him like he's been told he'd just lost a son. For days after people at the precinct look at her like she was some sort of traitor for helping Leon in his madness but she doesn't care. What she does care for, however, is how the guy from Forensics that never liked Leon behaves a lot nicer to her after Leon's leaving is made public knowledge. They have a coffee date next Saturday.

Jill drives Leon to the airport and kisses him in the cheek and tells him that if he doesn't write to her every once in awhile she is personally going to look for him all over China if she has to and kick his ass.

Jill isn't much for caring but she is a lot for understanding, that was her thing, but just this once, Leon understands too so he hugs her, tells her he's going to miss her too and disappears after the boarding gate and Jill smiles because that's what best friends do, what they did, that was their thing.

Leon cared and Jill, Jill understood.

* * *

If you'd ask me what prompted this fic, It's probably because I've always had the impression Leon and Jill had that kind of dysfunctional-functional friendship. They're the kind of friends you can piss off all you want but you know you'll be OK with the next day. Friends that help you when you are not yourself. Friends that care. Those friendships deserve more recognition in general. So there's that too.

Also I haven't written in English in a very long time so if you find errors please do correct me.

:)


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